Two Cambridgeshire doctors have joined 98 other senior NHS doctors and nurses from across the country in writing an open letter to the Prime Minister.

After the longest financial squeeze in history NHS England will be given a 3.4 per cent increase with the service on its knees with record debts and waiting times, but doctors and nurses have insisted Theresa May’s much anticipated healthcare funding boost will NOT rebuild the struggling NHS.

Experts say the five-year cash settlement is in reality a 3 per cent rise in overall health spending and will barely keep the NHS standing still, reports The Mirror.

Now more than 100 senior NHS consultants, professors, GPs and junior doctors and nurses have written an open letter to the Prime Minister.

They write in the Daily Mirror that the £20 billion annual rise by 2023/24 will in no way repair the damage inflicted over the last decade.

They said: “Less than 4% means the NHS will continue to deteriorate and our patients continue to suffer.

“Of patients waiting on hospital trolleys unable to get a bed or of ambulances stacked in queues unable to hand over their patients.”

The Institute for Fiscal Studies and independent health charities insisted a 4% funding boost was the minimum required to tackle fundamental problems.

Prime Minister Theresa May (Image: Toby Melville/PA Wire)

It comes amid a staffing crisis with around 100,000 NHS vacancies.

Over the last 70 years the NHS has seen average annual funding increases of 3.7%. The Tories have overseen annual increases of just over 1%.

'Tough choices now need to be made on where to invest'

Anita Charlesworth, director of economics at the Health Foundation, said: “Increases of just 3.3% a year mean longer waits for treatment, ongoing staff shortages, deterioration of NHS buildings and equipment and little progress to address cancer care.

“Tackling the huge disparity in access to mental health care will have to be an aspiration rather than reality for another five years.’

“Tough choices now need to be made on where to invest.

She added: “The Government has unfortunately missed the opportunity to put the NHS on a sustainable footing for the future.”

Sir Harpal Kumar, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, said: “The Government had the opportunity to invest in our NHS at a level that would ensure its future as a world leading health service.

“Whilst this additional investment is very welcome, it falls short of what is likely to be needed to truly transform the way that patients are cared for.”

The Government has agreed to increase NHS England’s budget by an average of 3.4% in each of the next five years.

But as this will not include rises for things like public health, nurse training and capital spending, putting the overall health spend increase at around 3%.

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Those to have put their name to today’s open letter include more than 50 GPs, 10 consultants, five professors and many more nurses, and junior doctors.

Dr Louise Irvine, a GP in Lewisham, south London, and co-chair of Health Campaigns Together said: "The Conservative government’s promised funding increase for the NHS is too little too late.

"It is in fact only 3% a year - they’ve done their usual smoke and mirrors to make it appear more by only counting the increase to the NHS England budget and not the overall Department of Health budget.

"This won’t be enough to repair the untold damage the Tories have done to the NHS over the past eight years of austerity or secure its future as a high-quality service.

"I fear that patients will continue to suffer needlessly and staff will continue to leave the profession due to stress and burnout. We’ll see more rationing, cuts and closures and insufficient improvement, if any, in waiting times."

Nigel Edwards, chief executive of the independent healthcare charity the Nuffield Trust, said: “The settlement is significantly lower than the 4% we and many others said was needed as a minimum to prevent deterioration in patient care.”

UNISON general secretary Dave Prentis said: “It isn’t the long-term funding package health workers will have been hoping for and there’ll be fears of strings attached.”

Experts rubbished Theresa May’s claim that £9 billion of the extra £20 billion needed by 2023/24 would be paid for by a so-called “Brexit dividend”.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies insisted there will be no extra cash from Brexit as a faltering economy and the loss of taxes would mean Britain is worse off.

Theresa May’s pledge amounts to an increase of £4 billion a year. The Labour Party has promised £7.7 billion plus an extra £1 billion for social care.

Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth MP said: “The NHS is in crisis after eight years of Tory cuts and privatisation.

“Today’s announcement confirms that Theresa May has failed to give the NHS the funding it needs.

“It will take billions of pounds just to restore NHS finances and pay off debts racked up due to the Tories’ cuts and fragmentation of the NHS.”